Credit: Patrick Whittemore

Goaltender Tuukka Rask makes a save during practice on Wednesday, October 2, 2013 at TD Garden.

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As Milan Lucic’s season was apparently swirling down the drain last year, no one in the Bruins’ organization really wanted to pull the trigger on the inevitable.

With Lucic having scored just two goals in 25 games and handling every puck like it was a live grenade, it was time for the big man — a player who, perhaps more than anyone, embodies the brand of hockey the Bruins sell — to take a seat in the press box.

The move to make Lucic a healthy scratch on April 20 against the Penguins may have been the obvious next step, but it didn’t make it easy. General manager Peter Chiarelli said there was “significant discussion” internally on what to do about Lucic. As much as people on the outside howled for Lucic to get scratched, and worse, the club did not want to embarrass a player of his ilk.

“You know what?” said Chiarelli, trying to explain why it was such a difficult decision. “He cares. You hate to have to do that to people that care. It’s tough.”

In retrospect, it was the right thing to do, and it was apparently timed perfectly. After the one-game furlough, Lucic returned to the lineup with five games left in the regular season and took strides forward with each one. It gave him a running start into the postseason.

In 22 playoff games, he notched 7-12-19 totals, good numbers to be sure but ones that don’t quite do justice to the havoc he wrought. He led the league with 102 postseason hits, 17 more than the second-place finisher, Chicago’s Bryan Bickell. His signature moment came in the B’s miraculous Game 7 comeback against Maple Leafs, when he assisted on Nathan Horton’s goal that made it 4-2, scored one himself to cut the deficit to a goal and crushed every blue shirt in sight until Patrice Bergeron scored the overtime winner.

Last week, the Canadian website TSN released its list of Top 50 players and Lucic made his first appearance at No. 42 (four ahead of his center, David Krejci). Lists are created to get people talking, but still Lucic’s presence underscores just how far he’s come since April 20.

“When my buddies texted me and told me I was on it, I was kind of shocked, just because of how I did play in the season,” Lucic said.

Set to begin his seventh season with the B’s tonight against Tampa Bay at the Garden, Lucic seems poised to make his struggles a very distant memory.

In describing the funk in which he found himself, Lucic said there was a “quicksand effect” going on.

“You keep trying to pull out of it and the harder you try, the deeper you go. That’s where I was,” he said. “And I think I was focusing on a lot of the wrong things. I was too focused on scoring, too focused on certain things, that’s when I’ve noticed my game kind of slips. I think when the playoffs started, my whole mindset was just go and play reckless, forecheck and hit and then everything else will come into place.

“Just keeping the simple mindset is kind of what got that excitement back and that motivation back.”

Lucic also conceded that, coming out of the lockout, his fitness was not at its best, though that wasn’t the only thing off.

“It definitely could have been better,” Lucic said. “But there were so many things where you didn’t know what was going to happen (with the work stoppage). I think it was more mentally I wasn’t there than it was physically.”

While Lucic may not have handled the lockout as best as he could, he takes pride in the fact that he took his medicine the right way. He didn’t pout over the scratch, but rather used it as a means to return to his old self.

“I think it showed the type of person I really am, that I’m willing to work at it to get better and that I love being a Bruin and I want to be there for my coaches and my teammates and the fans and I wanted to work through that,” Lucic said. “I’m just happy the way I reacted worked out the right way. With all the conversations I had with Claude (Julien), the assistant coaches, Cam (Neely), Peter, just everyone . . . it was comforting that though they made the decision they made, they also had my back and that they still believed in me. That’s what got me to believe in myself again.”

Despite the heartbreaking loss to the Blackhawks in the finals, the way Lucic finished the season gave him a spark heading into the offseason. He focused on improving his cardio health, concentrating on anaerobic exercises. He added an 800-meter run to his workout regimen, designed to help him with short but sustained bursts he needs for the average shift.

“To be able to push yourself hard for that two minutes and 15 seconds really help,” he said. “Out of the things that I did this summer, that was the thing that I found most helpful.”

Chiarelli said he first noticed Lucic’s improved fitness level at the Canadian Olympic camp in Calgary in August. And if anyone had their doubts, Lucic showed how fit he is when he dropped the mitts with Capitals farmhand Joel Rechlicz in the preseason. He and Rechlicz swapped thunderous blows for a full 45 seconds, nearly the length of his average shift last year (51 seconds).

Julien likes Lucic’s mindset as much as his fitness.

“He’s in better shape. Let’s not kid ourselves. He’s trained hard over the summer,” Julien said. “But also, I had a good talk with him and told him he’s in his seventh year and he’s always been a leader on his past teams, but I think it’s an opportunity to show some leadership. Our older guys are getting older and you have to make sure you have guys who can help out with that. Andrew Ference is gone, so are some of the guys in the past who’ve done that for us. He’s also taken that on himself. He wants to lead not just by talking but also by example. He’s come in a pretty serious and determined individual.”

While Lucic, who will play on a line with one of his boyhood idols in Jarome Iginla this year, is eager to pick up tonight where he left off last spring and summer, nobody’s expecting him to keep up that frenetic playoff pace over an 82-game schedule.

“For a large part of the playoffs, Looch was a man among boys,” Chiarelli said. “He willed a lot of things. There’s a level that he can sustain, and I know he can sustain. But to ask him to play at that level all the time, that would be difficult.”

Lucic, too, knows he still has some dog days ahead of him, like any player. But he hopes his experience last year limits them.

“Obviously, there’s never been anyone in the history of sports that’s played every game to the top of their ability, so you need to be realistic and know on some nights it’s not going to be there,” Lucic said. “But you want to put yourself in the best situation possible so that you’re able to perform on a consistent basis. From a personal standpoint, coming off the way I finished, I think it got my confidence back. It was almost like a spark, it gave me something to look forward to going into this year. I saw what I was able to do. It just reminds you how much you can impact a game and how much fun it is. Unfortunately sometimes you do lose touch with that. But when you come out of a funk the way that I did, and when times are bad, it makes you stronger and hope you get better from it.”